First Years - Piranhas in the Bedroom

Book excerpt: It's 1986, and 19-year-old Jonathan gets quite a culture shock when he leaves home to start his First year teacher training at Derbyshire College of Higher Education. Living in a large white (unmissable) student house full of lads, ranging from a posh boy from Kent to a northerner with anger issues, he must negotiate the perils of student life, which include seven-legged pub crawls in the dead of winter, fishnapping raids and cereals in the bedsheets, all at the same time as trying to woo a pretty blonde from Rochdale. Set in a time when cassette players were cool, contact with home was a red phonebox, but alcohol, lingerie and high jinx were still the order of the day, First Years: Piranhas in the Bedroom is written with a great British dry wit. Its nostalgia for all things 80s as well as its "will-they-won't-they" romantic comedy gives it a really broad appeal: The Young Ones meets High Fidelity.